Summary: the highlights

Stephen Twigg stood me up. I was due to meet the shadow education secretary in the middle of last week, but our appointment was delayed. Still, as you can see, it's always worth waiting for a politician who's not afraid of saying "I'm slightly thinking aloud here" in an interview. Here are the highlights.

• Twigg said he would be willing to pass legislation to ensure that private schools that do not serve the community lose their charitable status. The last Labour government's attempt to address this problem failed, he said. While some private schools were taking their charitable obligations seriously, a "significant number" were not, he said. But those schools were still enjoying charitable status, which allows them to benefit from tax relief worth at least £100m in total. "The Charity Commission should be much tougher on this," he said. "It may be that we need to look at primary legislation." He also said private schools were "a major barrier to achieving a more just society".

• Twigg said he was not going to rule out allowing more free schools to open under a Labour government because that would involve falling into a Tory "trap". He also said he wanted to retain "a mechanism via which innovative educators could create new schools".

• He said Labour should work with some Liberal Democrats on policy issues like social care, childcare and education. "There are certainly issues where Ed Miliband's Labour and people like Tim Farron can work together," he said.

• He said that the last Labour government wasted some of the money it spent on school buildings. One reason Labour lost in 2010 was because people did not believe it cared enough about value for money in the public services, he said. "We did brilliant things in terms of providing good quality [school] buildings," he said. "But we did not always get value for money, and that's a widely held view among those who work in education."

• He said he would face down the opposition from within the Labour party to his plan for military schools. "I don't resile from it at all," he said. "I've had plenty of people in touch with me who think it's a fantastic idea."

• He rejected claims that there was a "civil war" in the Labour party between the Blairites and the union-dominated left. The GMB's call for the Blairite pressure group Progress to be expelled from the party had been rejected overwhelmingly by people in the party, he said.

• He suggested that Labour would be willing to propose substantial spending cuts to fund a big improvement in childcare. Speaking as chair of Labour's childcare commission, he said that childcare could be "a big-ticket item" for the party's 2015 manifesto and that this could involve "switch spending". The commission would not just propose "tinkering at the edges", he said. "My ambition is big." ("Switch spending" could become a new political euphemism. It means slashing spending in one area to fund more spending in another.)

• He said the Labour government in which he was an education minister was wrong to reject the conclusions of the Tomlinson report calling for GCSEs and A-levels to be replaced with a diploma. Labour would reconsider some of these proposals as part of its curriculum review, he said.

The interview

We met in the office of Twigg's fellow Labour MP, Margaret Hodge, in Barking, her constituency, because Twigg had been on a school visit nearby. As we sat down, he said this was the room where Hodge masterminded the crushing of the BNP at the last election. Twigg himself is so pleasant and engaging that it is hard to imagine him crushing anyone, although, to be fair, you could argue that that was the mistake made by one Michael Portillo in 1997.

After his shock win in Enfield Southgate, Twigg eventually became an education minister before losing his seat in 2005. Re-elected to parliament as a Liverpool MP in 2010, he was appointed to the shadow cabinet last year.

Academies and "school freedom"

A: Because I don't think it's the best way of running schools. When I say town halls running schools, I mean turning the clock right back to before local management of schools, which I think was an important reform in the 1980s. I think it's important that schools have the autonomy and flexibility to make a lot of decisions for themselves that in the old days were made for them by local or central government. I think the big challenge now is how we devolve power from central government.

Q: So what powers would you want to devolve to schools that they don't have already? In your consultation, you're using the Twitter hashtag #schoolfreedom. What freedoms are you looking at?

A: Schools have a lot of freedoms. Sometimes schools underestimate the amount of freedom that they have in practice. What's interesting is to look at academies and the freedoms that those academies have compared with other schools. The significant one is around the curriculum. My view is that we need to have a national curriculum, but that the national curriculum has, over its 25 years, become too prescriptive. I think we need a curriculum that is based more on a framework of entitlements and outcomes, rather than highly detailed in terms of this is what you must teach at this stage. Academies have a lot of freedom on the curriculum. I would like that freedom to apply to all schools.

Q: What about other freedoms?

A: Another one that interests me is flexibility on the school day. Academies have freedom to determine a different school day. I think there's a very good argument for schools being able to have that freedom.

Q: What is the difference, then, between giving schools more freedom and just creating more academies? Aren't you in the same territory as Michael Gove?

A: I think I'm not in the same territory because I have a set of profound concerns with Michael Gove's approach to this. The principal concern is I think you can achieve some of the things he wants to achieve without schools having to convert to academy status.

Q: But if you are going to get to the same place at the end of the day, does it matter whether you take the Gove academy route or the Labour #schoolfreedom route?

A: It matters in a number of respects. If we believe in schools being able to make a decision, it should be a real choice for them.

Q: Michael Gove would say he believes in that too.

A: Except he's forcing schools to become academies. And a lot of schools that are converting to academy status frankly are doing so for financial reasons. I entirely respect them for doing so.

Free schools

Q: On free schools, my understanding of your position is that if you get into government you are not going to close any of them down – unless they are particularly awful – but you are not going to create any more. Would that be a fair summary?

Q: Does that mean you are moving towards a position where you will be able to say there will be no more free schools?

A: The programme isn't one that I would have invented. I don't think it's needed.

Q: In that case, why not just say "We won't close any down, but we'll turn the money tap off for new ones when we get into government"?

A: The way I would like to put it is that the free schools that are satisfying the criteria I set out are ones that could have been created under our academies programme. I would want to see more innovative schools being set up by people like Patricia Sowter in Enfield and Pete Hyman. I would not want to turn the tap off for those sorts of schools. But I think they could have been created under Labour's academies programme. So I would maintain a mechanism via which innovative educators could create new schools. I almost think it is a technical question as to whether that mechanism is the Tory free school legislation, or our earlier academies legislation, or something else. My problem with free schools is that they are an unplanned process of school development that is not related to need in any way.

A: Well, in the end, my job as shadow education secretary is to do what's right for the education system.

Q: But you've described a mechanism that would allow you to do that without the free school apparatus. Yet you are very cautious about saying you won't fund any more.

A: The reason I'm cautious about it is the risk is that it appears to be a very broad-brush dismissal of a whole set of schools when, however much I disagree with the programme, I can see some brilliant, innovative schools being created under it. And I don't want to fall into a trap – that Michael Gove would love me to fall into, by the way – of appearing to dismiss all of those schools simply because of the name on the board outside the school.

A: No, not at all. I said three different things, and I stand by all three. The schools idea was one of the three. Increasingly, these days, schools form partnerships with a whole range of organisations that bring benefits to those schools. One of the ways is through the sponsorship of academies. ResPublica's suggestion was military academies. And what we said, as our development of that idea, was services schools – military schools, as they have then been called by others – could be one way in which we could get a better relationship between the armed services and schools.

But the other two things I talked about – one was getting more cadet forces into schools. I don't know whether that would be similarly dismissed by the people on the blogs. Cadet forces are disproportionately in private schools. They do brilliant work where they exist. And the third element was getting ex-service people to have the opportunity to work in schools as mentors.

Last Monday I was at St Matthew's Academy in Lewisham in south London, that serves a predominantly black community, and a 14-year-old black girl, which makes the idiotic comment about the BNP quite riling, said: "What changed my life – I was off the rails – and my mentor from the services gave me a sense of self-discipline, hope in my life." I asked her if she was thinking of going into the armed forces. She said "No, no, that's not what I want to do." But what it did for her was give her rigour, give her a sense of self-discipline and get her back on the straight and narrow. I think there's great potential in this. I don't resile from it at all.

I don't know if people object to the military bit, or the academy bit, or both.

Q: It's the military bit. It was the sense that the Labour party should be offering something better to working class pupils from deprived communities than a fast track into the army.

A: If that is what I was suggesting, that would be a fair criticism. I was very clear in the speech that I did at the event last Tuesday that we are not talking about this as a method of recruitment into the armed services. Not that there's anything wrong with people joining the armed services. Nor am I suggesting some sort of boot camp.

Interestingly, the blogosphere is in one place. I've had plenty of people in touch with me who think it's a fantastic idea, including people who say that their own lives, in working class communities, were changed by the ability to have those sorts of relationships with people from the forces.

Private schools

Q: There were quite a few questions on the blog about private schools. A good example was this [from SonofCy]. "Would not the best way to increase equality in this country be to nationalise public schools?" He's got a point, hasn't he?

A: Without doubt, a major barrier to achieving a more just society and greater social mobility is the power of the private schools. It's interesting – "nationalise" – because Liverpool College, which is a private school in Liverpool, has just decided to become an academy, with no selection, no fees. It's an interesting way in which the academy route can by used to bring fee-paying schools into the state sector. It's the second Liverpool private school to do that. Belvedere did it under the Labour government. I supported both and welcome that as a way of getting rid of fee paying.

I don't think you can abolish or make illegal fee paying, I just don't think that's something you can do.

Q: But you are not going to get Eton and Westminster turning themselves into academies, are you?

A: We could aspire to that, but I think it's unlikely to happen.

Q: So, beyond that, is there any policy to address this? Or is it just in the "too difficult to handle" box?

A: No. It's challenging. What I certainly think is that independent schools that have charitable status have to earn that charitable status. And there is a very, very significant difference among the independent schools about how seriously they take their charitable status. I visited a couple of months ago Manchester Grammar, which is an independent school that takes its charitable status very seriously, works with state primary schools in Manchester, and is working with the city council to establish a free school. Not all independent school are doing that. And I think the Charity Commission should be much tougher on this. This was looked at by the previous Labour government and then the Charity Commission basically didn't proceed with it. I think we need to look at that again.

Q: It looked at the definition of charitable, didn't it?

A: I think there needs to be a tough definition.

Q: As in what? You have to sponsor an academy?

A: Michael Gove's approach is to press them on sponsoring academies. I think independent schools sponsoring academies is a good thing. I don't think it is the only way in which independent schools can fulfil their charitable objectives. Manchester Grammar make a good argument that what they do, which is different, achieves their charitable objectives.

Q: And what do they do?

A: They have a programme of their teachers working with teachers in the state primary schools in Manchester. They argue that they are spreading more benefit to more young people that way than if they simply sponsored an academy. But, frankly, the schools that are sponsoring academies or doing what Manchester Grammar are doing are the good ones. There are a lot of other private schools that aren't doing any of those sorts of things. And if they are going to get charitable status, they have got to be doing things that fulfil those charitable objectives or they shouldn't have that status. That's my view.

Q: As secretary of state, can you dictate to the Charity Commission how it interprets "charitable"?

A: I think that's probably where it all fell apart before. So – I'm slightly thinking aloud here – it may be we need to look at the legislation. It may be we need to look at primary legislation on this. And I would do that, because it is a serious, serious issue if schools are getting the benefit of charitable status and aren't doing anything to fulfil that benefit. And it's no good them saying: "We fulfil our charitable status by educating our students." That isn't enough.

Q: Can you seriously envisage a day when a Labour secretary of state turns around to a school and says: "For the first time in 400 years or so you have failed the charity test"?

A: I don't think a school should have charitable status that isn't fulfilling charitable objectives. Now, I'd have to have lots of legal advice about the mechanism for getting there. But I think we should have a proper, open, transparent process that is very, very rigorous in how it treats private schools and charitable status. And I think there are a significant number of private schools that are failing to fulfil their charitable objectives. And that's unacceptable.

Q: Do you want to say who they are?

A: I'm not going to name any schools. Maybe at a later stage.

Funding childcare

Q: You're chairing the Labour commission reviewing childcare. If you really want to improve childcare, it becomes hugely expensive. David Miliband, in the New Statesman last week, said Labour needs to propose more "switch spends", and that it has to be quite radical about saying it will stop spending in one area to fund spending in another. Will your review look at ideas on that scale?

A: Yes. We are right at the beginning of this. Our childcare commission was only established in April. Clearly, in the context of a policy review in which there's not going to be new money for spending, switch spending is going to have to be one of the ways in which we address the priorities we come up with.

Q: At what level is your ambition operating?

A: My ambition is big on this. I think childcare and adult social care have the potential to be two big-ticket items for a 2015 Labour manifesto. I don't want this just to come up with some tinkering at the edges.

Q: Will you be looking at the areas where the switch can come from? Or will you come up with a package and say that it's up to Ed Balls to find the money?

A: I think Ed would send that back to me. We do have a responsibility not just to say, "Here's the gold standard. This is what it would cost. Please fund it." We've got to look at what the potential is in all our areas. That's why I'm on the commission, Yvette [Cooper] is on it with the equalities hat, Liam [Byrne] with the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] hat and Rachel [Reeves] from the Treasury team. So we will have the opportunity to look at where we can have switch spending. But the key point, on this item specifically, David [Miliband] is absolutely right: we've got to be ambitious on care, childcare and adult social care.

Revisiting the Tomlinson report

Q: One of the readers on the blog [kenden] asked about the Tomlinson report. You were an education minister when that came out. Do you think the Labour government was wrong to reject its recommendations?

A: Yes. I do think we were wrong. And I was there, so I take my share of responsibility.

Q: Why was it rejected?

A: I think there was a fear of a move being seen to dilute academic excellence. There was a fear that it would be seen as undermining the A-level, which was seen as a gold standard qualification. And there was almost pragmatic nervousness about moving too quickly to make a big change. It's worth saying we are revisiting, not necessarily the exact plan, because that was seven, eight years ago, but the principles of Tomlinson we are revisiting as part of our curriculum review.

Q: What bits in the report [it proposed replacing GCSEs and A-levels with a diploma that pupils sat at different levels] would you like to revisit?

A: We've got to get away from a very, very narrow focus on subject knowledge. Michael Gove is going the other way, to a bigger focus on subject knowledge. What I liked in Tomlinson, that draws on the international baccalaureate, the Welsh baccalaureate, is a greater emphasis on critical inquiry, the extended project, credits and validation for other activities, including voluntary activity, citizenship, if you like, in its broad sense. We lost all of that. And that part of Tomlinson we need to look at again.

Q: Even if, by 2015, there will already have been some sort of upheaval in the curriculum?

A: If Michael Gove is going to go down the route that was leaked to the Mail, then we are going to have to address that because I don't think that is the way to prepare young people for the reality of the modern world, including the modern economy. If we are going to go back to CSEs and O-levels and less of an emphasis on coursework and purely linear exams, a division at 14 between the academic and the non-academic, we are going to have revisit that.

A: For me, it's a matter of principle. I can see how that could be presented by rightwing critics of mine as dogma. But when you are talking about a universal service that is a social good, then it should not be being run for profit. Now, I realise there are all sorts of issues of people who supply books to schools and services to schools. But the core job of running schools on a day to day basis – I don't think it's right that you make a profit. Additionally, there's no evidence to suggest that there's some fantastic array of people out there waiting to come in and run brilliant schools and the only thing that's stopping them is that they cannot make a profit.

Teaching experience

Q: Another person [almosteric] asked if you had ever tried posing as a supply teacher and going into a failing school to experience teaching at the sharp end.

A: I've not done that.

Q: I suppose this person would say: "Don't you think you should?"

A: I hope I would be removed quite quickly. I suspect I would not be very good at teaching, having had no teacher training whatsoever. Teach First does a programme where they encourage people to go and teach a class. I did do that, but that was obviously structured. They knew exactly who I was.

I like the idea. I'll think about it. But I would hope I would not get very far, unless it was done with the co-operation of the headteacher.

Progress and the GMB

A: Well, I was disappointed. The great strength of what has happened since 2010 is that the Labour party has not turned in on itself. Ed [Miliband] has achieved unity behind him from people who supported him and people who didn't support him.

A: No. It's not a description that I recognise at all. I don't think there is a civil war going on in the party. People have got the right to say what they want to say, but the overwhelming sense that I get, from people who share Progress's broad approach, to colleagues who absolutely don't share Progress's broad approach, is that people don't want to see some move to outlaw Progress. I don't think that's something that's gaining support.

A: There has been some sort of transparency index of all the thinktanks, and Progress got the highest possible grade. We took a look at what people were saying about Progress. Concern was expressed by some that there was not any process of internal election for a committee to oversee the work of Progress. So there was a discussion and it was decided it would be sensible to introduce that. Progress has got more members than it has ever had before, so there's a logic in giving those members a say in the running of the organisation. That change was made, alongside measures to make things more transparent. The greater the transparency the better, because Progress has nothing to hide.

Relations with Lib Dems

Q: Last year in a speech to the Co-operative schools conference (pdf) you talked quite pointedly about "Socialist [Robert] Owen and Liberal [Jeremy] Bentham working together for the common purpose". Can you see yourself working at some point in the future with Liberal Democrats in government?

A: I think we are all bruised by the events since the 2010 election, and it makes it a lot harder, even for people like me who are long-standing advocates of constitutional reform. We will all be wanting to work flat-out for a majority Labour government. But we know we are in an era where political allegiances aren't as rigid as they used to be. So my view would be this: right now, my focus is on getting a majority Labour government, with Ed Miliband to be prime minister.

Right now, because of what the Lib Dems have done, it's quite hard to consider ways in which we would work together. But it is the case that there are people in the Liberal Democrat party who are deeply, deeply unhappy with the direction that Nick Clegg has taken their party. And there are Lib Dem voters up and down the country who are utterly alienated from their party.

It would be completely absurd for me to rule out addressing the concerns of those voters and working with those Liberal Democrats who are not happy with the way in which they have signed up to Tory policy on the economy and on health and in other areas.

Q: Would you be happy to serve in a cabinet with Vince Cable as deputy prime minister?

A: Like a lot of people, I had a lot of respect for Vince in the role he played in the runup to and during the financial crisis. I think it is very hard to square what he was saying and arguing then with what he's then signed up to in government. So it's difficult.

A: I've known Tim for a very long time. I go back to student politics days with Tim Farron. I'm not going to jump in to talking about serving in government with people. But I think there are certainly issues where Ed Miliband's Labour and people like Tim Farron can work together. We need to look at real practical issues that matter to people. And I say that as a constitutional reformer.

The reality is that, much as I still do care about constitutional reform, this isn't an issue that resonates with a lot of voters. Let's look at social care, let's look at childcare, let's look at education reform. And if there are areas where we can work together with those Lib Dems who are uncomfortable with the government, then I think that's sensible politics.

Q: And what could Labour be doing to win over voters from other parties?

A: If you look at what's happened since the general election, clearly there has been a massive switch in voting from a large part of the people who voted Lib Dem direct to Labour. What we've started to do now is to win over some people direct from the Conservatives. That's shown in some of the election results in May and in the polling.

The key next phase is what the policies are that convince more of those people to come to us, more of the moderate Conservative voters that voted for us in 1997, 2001, probably 2005 as well, that we lost in 2010.

Thinking about my own area, what are the things that made those voters turn their backs on Labour? There are a number of things, but I think there was a sense of: "Does Labour care enough about value for money in public services?" Part of what we have got to do is to demonstrate to those voters that our passion for education and health and all the other areas is matched by a respect for delivering value for money.

Q: What can you do in education to show that?

A: There is a perfect example around spending on school buildings. I think we did brilliant things in terms of providing good quality buildings in communities up and down the country, and I absolutely stand by what we did. But we did not always get value for money, and that's a widely held view among those who work in education.

Q: Are you talking about private finance initiatives? Or are you just a talking about paying too much for nice buildings?

A: It was elements of PFI, it was elements of scale. Wanting really decent buildings is a good thing, but sometimes it meant the amount spent per school was very, very high. Also, regardless of those two factors, there were inefficiencies in some of the programmes that if we were running them again we would not repeat, not least because we won't have as much money.